WKHQ-FM (105.9 MHz) is a 100,000-watt radio station licensed to Charlevoix, Michigan, with studios located on U.S. 131 South Petoskey, Michigan and US 31 Acme, Michigan. The Top 40 (CHR) station is known to listeners as Hits 106 KHQ, Northern Michigan's #1 Hit Music Channel.
WVOY
The station signed on in 1980, but its roots can be traced back to the early 1970s, with the beginning of WVOY, a 5,000-watt daytime-only station at 1270 kHz on the AM dial. WVOY was one of the first all-contemporary-hit-music radio stations in northern Michigan and featured Bill Vogel ("The Captain," formerly of Detroit's WDRQ), John Yaroch, Rick Durkin, and other major-market-quality talent.
Despite WVOY's limited signal, the station became extremely popular and gave northern Michigan listeners a taste of the "big city" radio sound. The station was live during morning and afternoon drive (with Vogel and Yaroch), and "live assist" automation using ITC ("The Cart Machine People") "carousels" and carted music during other time periods.
WKHQ Signs On
After many years of expensive and time-consuming legal wrangling over a hotly contested 100 kW FM license (mostly with religious broadcast proponent Roland Cilke), the station's owners, Tim Ives and Elmo Franklin, sold an interest to former WVOY salesperson and air talent Tim Moore, who had worked with TM Programming Broadcast consultants in the interim since his departure from WVOY in the mid-1970s. Moore later purchased the interests of Ives and Franklin at a pre-arranged contract price. Tim went on to buy stations in Florida. Today Moore is the principal of Audience Development Group, a large programming consulting firm working with stations coast to coast.
The call letters Moore chose were WKHQ, named after a legendary Spokane, Washington radio and TV combo, KHQ. The station signed on May 8, 1980, using TM Programming's "Stereo Rock" format, developed by George Burns and programmed by Bob Harper. 106/KHQ quickly shot up to the top of the ratings thanks to its polished jocks and pitch-perfect upbeat music. In its early years, WKHQ was known as "The Rhythm of the Northwest" (referring, of course, to northwestern Michigan), and its TM "Stereo Rock" jingles used that slogan. WVOY, in the meantime, flipped to a Music of Your Life format, although the station would return to simulcasting the FM later in the 1980s as WKHQ. The station is now WMKT, "News/Talk 1270."
Moore sold the station in the mid-1980s to Midwest Family, only to recover it a few years later. He sold it again to Cadillac Media who also ended up having financial problems, and again became the owner. Midwest then sold to MacDonald Broadcasting in 1994.
WKHQ vs. WKPK
In 1994, KHQ and 1270, now Talk station WMKT, was sold to Trish MacDonald-Garber, who owned WMBN 1340 and WLXT 96.3, a.k.a. Lite 96. With the ownership change, MacDonald-Garber transitioned KHQ to more of a Hot AC, causing rival 106.7 The Peak to boost their teenage audience even further. KHQ's liners would blast The Peak for being "the rap station", while The Peak's liners would blast KHQ for being too corny. As a result, by the late 1990s, KHQ would be a full-blown CHR again, but in the interim, WKPK became the dominant CHR signal and the #1 station in most areas that KHQ had once "owned".
In 2000, 106.7 The Peak flipped to Hot AC, leaving KHQ all to itself in the CHR arena. With the format all to itself, KHQ again ventured into Adult CHR territory, with only a limited number of rap tracks.